#de

Let me ask you outright, gentle reader, if there have not been hours, indeed whole days and weeks of your life, during which all your usual activities were painfully repugnant, and everything you believed in and valued seemed foolish and worthless? ↗

— Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann

#ichschmertz #weariness #life

Question for your life: If there were a fountain machine that dispensed destruction instead of soda, would you grab an extra large cup? ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#destroy #destruction #destructive #fountain-machine #grab

It's easy to be humble when your life's prosper. Nothing could be denigrated when life's so poor. ↗

— Toba Beta

#humble #life #poor #prosper #prosperity

Then Deborah stood at the wicket gate, the boundary, and there was a woman with outstretched hand, demanding tickets. "Pass through," she said when Deborah reached her. "We saw you coming." The wicket gate became a turnstile. Deborah pushed against it and there was no resistance, she was through. "What is it?" she asked. "Am I really here at last? Is this the bottom of the pool?" "It could be," smiled the woman. "There are so many ways. You just happened to choose this one." Other people were pressing to come through. They had no faces, they were only shadows. Deborah stood aside to let them by, and in a moment they had gone, all phantoms. "Why only now, tonight?" asked Deborah. "Why not in the afternoon, when I came to the pool?" "It's a trick," said the woman. "You seize on the moment in time. We were here this afternoon. We're always here. Our life goes on around you, but nobody knows it. The trick's easier by night, that's all." "Am I dreaming, then?" asked Deborah. "No," said the woman, "this isn't a dream. And it isn't death, either. It's the secret world." The secret world... It was something Deborah had always known, and now the pattern was complete. The memory of it, and the relief, were so tremendous that something seemed to burst inside her heart. "Of course..." she said, "of course..." and everything that had ever been fell into place. There was no disharmony. The joy was indescribable, and the surge of feeling, like wings about her in the air, lifted her away from the turnstile and the woman, and she had all knowledge. That was it - the invasion of knowledge. ("The Pool") ↗

— Daphne du Maurier

#creativity #death #dream #fantasy #imagination

Our eyes met and locked as the song came to a halt, followed by a screaming conclusion from the crowd, girls around us pressing me into the stage, forcing all the air out of my lungs, but I’d forgotten about doing anything so basic as breathing. ↗

— Emme Rollins

#concerts #crowd #crowded #new-adult #new-adult-romance

As a columnist, I realize that whatever amount of corruption I expose, half my readers will block it out, although they may get a frisson of joy in the process. ↗

— Margaret Carlson

#amount #block #columnist #corruption #expose

That was Dad's life, and I was the birdshit on his windshield. ↗

— Richard Bachman

#rage #life

The Greatest Generation got to save old tires, dig a Victory Garden and forgo sugar. The Richest Generation is being asked to shop. ↗

— Margaret Carlson

#being #dig #forgo #garden #generation

He had the feeling that he must make a decision, and though he was used to making many decisions every day, this time he was beset with uncertainty; in fact he had no idea what was being asked of him ↗

— Amos Oz

#uncertainty #life

If a man were to sow a field, he could not excuse his neglect by saying that it would be useless to sow unless God caused the seed to grow. He would not be justified in neglecting tillage because the secret energy of God alone can create a harvest. No one is hindered in the ordinary pursuits of life by the fact that unless the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it. ↗

— Charles H. Spurgeon

#providence #life